Lady Gaga celebrates her 37th birthday today. Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, she is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. The New York native rose to fame with her debut album, The Fame, in 2008. The album featured a pair of hit singles “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.” In the years since, she’s collected 12 Grammys, with 29 nominations.

In 2019, she launched makeup line Haus Laboratories, which has raised over $10 million in venture funds. Gaga has been known for the constant reinvention of her appearance, including futuristic, highly fashionable and sometimes controversial outfits. She states that she is “very into fashion” and that it is “everything”.

We’ve ranked her 12 best songs along with her best fashion looks to accompany our list.

• 12. “Just Dance”

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  Lady Gaga wrote this song a day after arriving in Los Angeles from New York. The singer-songwriter said, "I was taken very quickly out of my party lifestyle. I wrote it instantly - like it flew out of my body." She explained the meaning of the song as "If you've ever been so high that it's, like, scary, the only way you can deal with it is not deal with it, so you just kind of dance through the intoxication."

• 11. “Bad Romance”

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  This club banger is the lead single from the deluxe edition of Gaga's debut album, The Fame Monster. Lyrically, the song celebrates the passion and desire found in a bad romance novel.

• 10. “LoveGame”

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  Critics appreciated the song's "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" hook. Gaga had explained that the term "disco stick" is a euphemism for a penis and was inspired by her sexual attraction to a stranger at a night club.
• 9. “Alejandro”

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  Gaga explained the song's meaning about the "purity of my friendships with my gay friends, and how I've been unable to find that with a straight man in my life."

• 8. “Poker Face”

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  The song started trending this year because of a viral TikTok video where a fan reacts to the lyrics of the post-chorus, realizing that Gaga’s singing “f-f-f--- her face”. This revelation in the TikTok community has led to people googling the lyrics to check if it’s true.

• 7. “Applause”

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  Gaga attributes her failing hip influencing the song saying, "When I was finishing the [Born This Way] tour, I was physically breaking. I was in a lot of pain, but didn't know where really. I have a strong threshold for pain, so I kept slapping myself saying, 'Get it together.' The only thing that kept me going was the applause. And I was able to drown out the pain and finish the show."
• 6. “John Wayne”

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  Gaga's Americana craving for a wild, blue-collar man and smoking cannabis. She fantasizes about "a real wild man" like John Wayne. Some critics felt that "John Wayne" might portray Gaga's relationship with her ex-fiancé Taylor Kinney.

• 5. “Joanne”

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  Joanne was Gaga's aunt, who she died of lupus when she was 19. Gaga explained how the song has helped her father to come to terms with the loss of his sister after all these years.

• 4. “Shallow”

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  This is the most awarded song in music history, written and performed by Gaga and Bradley Cooper. It was released as the lead track for their 2018 musical romance drama "A Star Is Born." Gaga wrote it from her character Ally's point of view, with the self-aware lyrics asking each other if they are content being who they are.
• 3. “Telephone”

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  "Telephone" was originally written for Britney Spears's sixth album Circus. However, after it failed to make the album's final track listing, Gaga recorded the song as a collaboration with Beyoncé on The Fame Monster.

• 2. “Judas”

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  Gaga explained that the song was about the incidents that have haunted Gaga in the past as well as honoring one's inner darkness in order to bring oneself into the light. Several religious groups condemned Gaga for the use of religious imagery and her role as Mary Magdalene in the video.

• 1. “Paparazzi”

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  Gaga said that she intended this song to have a few different interpretations, "The song is about a few different things – it's about my struggles, do I want fame or do I want love? It's also about wooing the paparazzi to fall in love with me." Adding, "It's a love song for the cameras, but it's also a love song about fame or love – can you have both, or can you only have one?"

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